


Joy. Discovery. Invention

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: M/M, Written in 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 22:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3745822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Turns out things weren’t the way you thought they were. You have to wonder, who was clinging to who</p>
            </blockquote>





	Joy. Discovery. Invention

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://graffitidec-fic.livejournal.com/61797.html#cutid1)

You’re on tour. Sitting on the couch in the backroom with Chester curled up beside you. Not touching, though, because every touch between you is like being burned. Turns out you can kid yourself you don’t need him anymore but you’re the only one buying it. 

The TV is on but you can’t even pay attention. He’s so close to you that you can barely breathe, can only watch out of the corner of your eye as he bites his fingers nails down to the quick then wipes blood and spit onto his jeans and moves onto the next finger.

If you were still...together, fucking, whatever...maybe you’d slap his bloody hand away from his mouth and tell him to quit it. But that’s his wife’s job, now. Even if she isn’t here, even if she’s back in California.

Pregnancy tests and it was what Chester always wanted. And you never said the words, you never said you never wanted to see him again like that, you just stopped visiting his bunk. And the one time he tried to creep into yours late at night you pretended to be asleep, and eventually he went away. You could hear him crying, though. Everybody could.

He told them it was the strain of being away from his wife, especially now that she’s pregnant. Thank you, Chester, for that lovely kick in the teeth. He rambles on to them about how she didn’t think she could bare children and you get up, heading for the back of the bus.

Chester sighs wearily, “Brad.”

“Oh fuck you, Chaz.”

And suddenly everybody knows.

At least now you can be openly miserable. Until now you’d at least made an effort to appear happy to be on tour, you’d pretended for everybody. But now you didn’t have to. So you didn’t even try. You moped continuously.

You tried telling yourself that he was better off with her and his new little baby. Chester always was so fucking needy. Sure you were going to leave him he’d ask you to tell him you love him. And you’d wrap your arms around him, you’d whisper against his neck.

“I love you,” you’d whisper, kissing the warm skin beneath your lips.

And then one day it stopped being a lie. One day you realised you really were in love with him. But fuck. This wasn’t supposed to happen. 

And suddenly your places were switched, “Tell me you love me,” you’d whisper in the darkness, the tiny cramped space of his bunk. “Ches. Tell me.”

Chester wouldn’t look at you. He said “We need to talk.” Paused and pushed your hands away from his face, “It’s about Samantha…”

You should have never started this in the first place. But you’d felt safe. Chester once told you he was scared of being left behind. And sure sometimes his desperation, his neediness, it was unbearable sometimes. But he loved you. His fear of you leaving him made you want to stay. 

Turns out things weren’t the way you thought they were. You have to wonder, who was clinging to who?


End file.
